Digital video capabilities may be incorporated into a wide range of devices such as, for example, digital televisions, digital direct broadcast systems, digital recording devices, and the like. Digital video devices may provide significant improvements over conventional analog video systems in processing and transmitting video sequences with increased bandwidth efficiency.
Video content may be recorded in two-dimensional (2D) format or in three-dimensional (3D) format. In various applications such as, for example, the DVD movies and the digital TV (DTV), a 3D video is often desirable because it is often more realistic to viewers than the 2D counterpart. A 3D video comprises a left view video and a right view video. A 3D video frame may be produced by combining left view video components and right view video components.
Various video encoding standards, for example, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 advanced video coding (AVC), multi-view video coding (MVC) and scalable video coding (SVC), have been established for encoding digital video sequences in a compressed manner. For example, the MVC standard, which is an extension of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard, may provide efficient coding of a 3D video. The SVC standard, which is also an extension of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard, may enable transmission and decoding of partial bitstreams to provide video services with lower temporal or spatial resolutions or reduced fidelity, while retaining a reconstruction quality that is similar to that achieved using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. A modality of scalability in the SVC may comprise temporal scalability, spatial scalability, fidelity scalability and/or combined scalability. The temporal scalability provides a hierarchical prediction structure, while the spatial scalability provides an inter-layer prediction structure.
Most TV broadcasts, and similar multimedia feeds, utilize video formatting standard that enable communication of video images in the form of bitstreams. For example, a bitstream may be a transport stream (TS) which may comprise one or more elementary streams (ES). Packets in the same elementary stream all have the same packet identifier (PID). These video standards may utilize various interpolation and/or rate conversion functions to present content comprising still and/or moving images on display devices. For example, deinterlacing functions may be utilized to convert moving and/or still images to a format that is suitable for certain types of display devices that are unable to handle interlaced content. TV broadcasts, and similar video feeds, may be interlaced or progressive. Interlaced video comprises fields, each of which may be captured at a distinct time interval. A frame may comprise a pair of fields, for example, a top field and a bottom field. The pictures forming the video may comprise a plurality of ordered lines. During one of the time intervals, video content for the even-numbered lines may be captured. During a subsequent time interval, video content for the odd-numbered lines may be captured. The even-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as the top field, while the odd-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as the bottom field. Alternatively, the odd-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as the top field, while the even-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as the bottom field. In the case of progressive video frames, all the lines of the frame may be captured or played in sequence during one time interval. Interlaced video may comprise fields that were converted from progressive frames. For example, a progressive frame may be converted into two interlaced fields by organizing the even numbered lines into one field and the odd numbered lines into another field.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.